


Steve Rogers' Pocket Guide to American History

by viske



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Coming Out, Light Angst, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Relationship Advice, Self-Esteem Issues, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-16 04:41:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19310827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viske/pseuds/viske
Summary: So, in the imagination of a man, who’d thought about his timely and somewhat welcome demise like he thought about what to cook for dinner. This man who’d thought it through it so methodically and mundanely like from counting from one to a billion out loud, to die by his own hand was one thing he had considered, but that hand being attached to a version of himself that he’d met in 2012 whilst trying to retrieve a stolen magical gemstone from his co-worker’s adopted brother, all in pursuit of saving half the universe 11 years in the future? Well, that was like finding out there was a new number neatly nestled between 3 and 4 and having to start counting all over again.Steve Rogers comes face to face with himself in 2012, in some ways he likes what he meets. Mostly he just thinks about punching him.





	Steve Rogers' Pocket Guide to American History

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't expecting this fic to end up so long, but it was very cathartic. It's basically the embodiment of 'if you could give advice to your past self'

Honestly, this isn’t how Steve imagined it happening.

He’d imagined dying before, being a soldier in World War Two, even a super soldier like him, dying was basically a secondary line of thought. It fight right in there with practising drills and shining his boots. He’d even made peace with dying when he was plummeting to his death on the Valkyrie, the frigid water surrounded him as he whispered his last goodbyes to himself out into the Arctic tundra. He mumbled to himself, perhaps somewhat ironically, ‘ _I guess this is the end of the line_ ’  in the hope that he was close enough to the otherside that Bucky could hear him. Then he woke up, angry that he’d finally made peace with dying and suddenly he didn’t have to.

After then, there were a multitude of ways he thought he’d go. In ways straight out of a pulp science fiction novel, blown to pieces by an alien laser ray or crushed to death by a sentient blob hellbent on making earth it’s new litter tray. There were also the boring ways, like falling down a flight of stairs slightly too awkwardly even for the serum to protect him. One way, one of his favourite ways to imagine, was that he’d bite into a peanut butter cup and somehow his nut allergy would break through the serum pulsing through his body and he’d die on the floor of his Brooklyn apartment knocking, alone with nobody to hear him, all because his neighbour thought it’d be a good time to pop out to the shops.

Most of the time when he thought about dying, Tony was always involved. Sometimes it was by Tony’s hand himself, red metallic crushing around his throat. But most of the time, Tony was just _there_ , the one constant in the chain of events leading to his death. He’d accidentally drop a building on Steve during a battle, or hit him too hard with a phaser accidently set to kill, or his jilted lover would throw a knife at Tony and use Steve as a human shield, or finally pour him too much Asguardian liquor and Steve would wander off into the night never to be seen again.

So, in the imagination of a man, who’d thought about his timely and somewhat welcome demise like he thought about what to cook for dinner. This man who’d thought it through it so methodically and mundanely like counting from one to a billion out loud, to die by his own hand was one thing _he had_ considered, but that hand being attached to a version of himself that he’d met in 2012 whilst trying to retrieve a stolen magical gemstone from his co-worker’s adopted brother, all in pursuit of saving half the universe 11 years in the future? Well, that was like finding out there was a new number neatly nestled between 3 and 4 and having to start counting all over again.

"Bucky… is alive," Steve wheezes with his final breath, knowing that other than dying Bucky has been the only other constant thought in his life.

“What?” The younger man groans and despite his best efforts there’s something serendipitous in his voice. He releases Steve’s neck and his vice like grip around their entangled legs. Steve turns his neck and  looks back at the young Captain. "Loki?" Cap mumbles into Steve’s face, this time the accusation once thick with certainty came out as little more than a whisper.

Steve wriggles free from his own arms. As he flicks himself up from the tower floor he couldn’t help feel a certain comfort from being around the other Captain, comfort was a strange thing to find in the bat shit craziness of the whole situation. He rubs his neck carefully, his voice still hissing from the deadlock, "I'm not Loki, I'm you from 11 years in the future."

Cap sits up, two gloved hands placed flat by his thighs.  "I don't believe you," he says like he’s trying to convince himself more than anyone else. The portion of his face not covered by that ridiculous cowl is flush with shock and awe. Steve can see him mouth _‘Bucky’s alive’_ and he’s probably entirely unaware of how vulnerable he looks sat on the glass splattered floor, legs spread like a teddy bear propped up in the corner of the room.

This is what Sam means when he says that Steve’s the smartest man in the world until it comes to Bucky.

Steve inspects the two shields that have stopped spinning on the ground and grabs the slightly more tattered one. He probably should have worried a little more about that if he’d have accidentally taken the wrong one he could rip a hole in the space time continuum and he didn’t really fancy coming back to this moment to fix it, two thoroughly pissed off star spangled men was one thing, but three? Now that's just being silly.

The Captain composes himself from his dumbstruck position, stands up and marches over to Steve, bright red fists balled at his sides.

God, how did anyone take him seriously in that suit? Steve wants to laugh but he highly doubts that will do anything to diffuse the situation.  

He digs one of those bright red gloved sausage fingers into the divot between Steve’s pecs, “Who.are.you?”

"Jesus Christ,” Steve groans, halfway hoping that the god fearing version of himself would punch him in the face to put him out of his misery. “Have I always been this stubborn? I see why Tony wanted to fight me, I'd fight me too" He pauses and looks at the disseminated galley around them "I have fought me-"

Cap waits a moment before executing a perfect right hook directly into Steve’s nose. It hurts, it hurts like fucking hell, careful what you wish for Rogers he thinks to himself. This version of himself may be arrogant, niave, hot headed, closeted and godfearing but fuck is he strong, but he supposes thats what made him useful back then.

He wipes the blood from his nose and instead of punching him back he rips the helmet and cowl from his head, “That’s so much better.”

“Why didn’t you hit me back? If you’re really who you say you are I, you should have hit me back?”

He groans as he can feel the bones in his nose snapping back into place,“That" Steve young Captain, is character development.”

“So, if you’re finished being an asshole to the guy trying to save the world-”

“You sound more like Tony than you sound like me?”

“Yeah the bastard rubs off on you,” Steve bends his knees to angle for the scepter from the floor behind him, trying to keep the younger man distracted.“They all do in their own ways, especially Natasha you’re gonna get along great with her in the end. What a woman!” The blood stops trickling from his nose and into his mouth,“You’ll make out once by the way, so look forward to that.” His gloved hands finally wrap around the shaft of the sceptre. "Also there's this nurse you'll meet, or maybe won't meet now, I don't know? It's your future not mine but, it won't work out, she's Peggy's niece.” He stands up and goes to push the call button on his palm before leaving a few parting words of wisdom, “Leave it alone."

Before he can push the button, the young Cap has barrelled into him, grabbing the sceptre as they crash through, a somewhat poorly built wall in a billion dollar tower, into a small office that probably belonged to someone in middle management.

Cap wrangles the sceptre off the older man and holds it in the air in triumph.

"Wait you, we, we dated Peggy's niece?" he asks Steve slowly, still working through the situation at hand. He may not be fully around to the idea of two real Steve Rogers’ but he is definitely intrigued by the idea that whoever this strange doppelganger is that he may be able to give the excruciatingly beautiful yet romantically inept young Captain some personalised dating advice.

"So it's we now?" Steve quirks an eyebrow as he sneaks a peek at the sceptre glistening in the late afternoon sun.  

" _You_ dated Peggy's niece, that's not on my shoulders" he laughs in a way that really pierces Steve’s ego, "I just don't believe you."

"You fought aliens not 2 hours ago and time travel is still too much for you to handle?" he returns, trying to go for the same devastating petulance.

Cap tightens his grip on the sceptre resulting in a creak, clearly ready to start shooting hostages "Loki. This is your last warning," he tests.

"For the last time, I am not Loki" Steve pleas. God he fucking hates his hard headedness sometimes. As soon as he gets back to Sam and Bucky and the rest of America he’s going to make a public appology about it, and that fucking suit.

He waves his hands down, "Yeah okay look that niece thing wasn't my proudest moment and surely that's just too weird even for Loki," he starts to stammer as Cap’s leather gloves constrict even tighter around the shaft, "Who turned out to be not that bad, well for a Asgardian dark elf prince who wears alot leather but still manages to be decidedly unsexy, at least to me, uh, us" he looks up at Cap’s completely lost face, "it's the slicked back hair, too weasley."

Cap takes one large confused step backward from the time traveller.

"The leathers good though, you, I, we ended up liking that, It’s a Bucky thing,” he offers, like it’s supposed to help, “You’ll know that when you see it" he refrains from winking even though he really does want to.

Steve remembers the first time he saw Bucky in those clothes. Lines of supple leather constricting around his body, line after line like a black mamba stacked upon itself, deadly in the darkness. As much as it awakened something in Steve, some dark and saudid, and some part of him was sad to see the leather bound broken to see him in something over than the chains he'd been given. The small part of him that was sad to see it go was far more depraved than he'd ever care to admit.

Cap moves forward into Steve's face, his eyes widen with anticipation.“Tell me about Bucky, that’s the only reason why I’ve kept you alive for so long”, he snarls whilst bundling the star of Steve’s suit into his fist.

“Look I am not Loki!” Steve almost cries, exhausted with the whole ordeal. Loki was a bigger pain in the ass now that when he was trying to blow up New York.

"You've lost me entirely, but I don't believe that Loki would say that about himself so you've convinced me you're not Loki" he releases his fist from Steve's suit, "Whoever you are."

"I'm you and you need to help me, help me save Bucky."

"Okay", he releases Steve and holds up his hands in submission, "Okay, I'll bite".

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
> I deleted tumblr but I'm always down to yell about these 2 and hear feedback, if you wanna get in touch, send me a DM at www.instagram.com/itscaptaindumbass


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